The Empty Hand
by Reyka Sivao
Summary: T'Pring after Amok Time.
1. Beneath the Watcher

T'Pring's breath was even, every hair was still in place, her poise and control were perfect, and her mind was reeling.

She had done it. The day she had dreaded for so long in the quiet of her mind was over, and she had won.

She was free.

She stood alone, finally alone, and the sharp, harsh desert wind freed a single hair from its tightly bound captivity and brushed it softly against her face like a promise.

She was _free_.

"T'Pring."

T'Pau. T'Pring has always known that the elders would not be happy with her, but it did not matter. She could defend her actions as logical, even now, but that that means less than it is meant to. Especially when it comes to _this_.

Bracing herself, she turned.

"Yes, elder?"

T'Pau regarded her for a long, unblinking moment. The late afternoon heat of the White Eye warred with what little cooling power could be found in the hot breath of the desert wind.

"Why?" she said simply.

T'Pring blinked, not quite prepared for this. Accusations? A quiet agreement not to acknowledge her existence? Enforced suggestions that she might logically seek her fate elsewhere? Those she understood. Those she had been prepared to face.

The one thing she had not been prepared to face was an honest question, if indeed this was.

Warily, T'Pring looked up at the older woman, trying to gauge any scrap of intention from the stonelike crags of her ancient face, but she could divine nothing at all.

"You will have to be more specific."

T'Pau examined her for another moment.

"Why did you reject my grandson?"

Again, T'Pring saw the face that had been enforced on her for eighty percent of her life, and no longer.

She looked away.

"Not for himself," she said quietly. "I could not have acted differently had I been bonded to another."

The bright, dry silence fell around them again.

"Tell me why," said T'Pau, and T'Pring was not sure if it was invitation or command.

Still wary, T'Pring glanced out at the desert. Opposite the lowering sun, the enormous moonlike face of Vulcan's sister planet glowed white as it neared full phase.

"Even an animal will gnaw off its own limb to save itself from a trap."

The wind whispered promises in her ears that she had long ago forced herself to stop hearing.

"What would you have us do?" said T'Pau, and no matter how much she wished it, T'Pring could find no trace of accusation in her voice. "Would you have us refrain from bonding our sons? How many would find bondmates before it was too late?"

T'Pring was silent for a moment. That, at least, was one concern she had been spared.

"I cannot say how the world should be made to work."

"You have nothing to offer?"

T'Pring raised one hand, palm up.

"I can speak for none other than myself."

"Then speak."

T'Pring looked back up at the matriarch for a moment.

"I know only this: had I been given another option, one that would have left him time, I would have taken it."

"And yet, you were willing to accept the choice you were offered."

T'Pring took another breath of the free desert air.

"My life was not worth less than his."

T'Pau inclined her head a fraction, waiting.

"I am not worth less," T'Pring repeated. "I was nothing but the sacrifice led to the altar. I was nothing except as I could be used to preserve another. And even in the pale mockery of choice I was offered, I would become less than nothing, except to whomever won me as a prize."

T'Pau looked at her again.

"Then why did you accept that choice?"

T'Pring glanced at the cool stone that lay in the shadow of the low wall that surrounded them.

"Even if the price was becoming chattel, at least I would have had one chance to be heard."

They were silent for another long moment. Eddies of air swirled around them, the only thing breaking the illusion of timelessness.

"It is truly your will to be heard?"

T'Pring's eyebrows drew together a fraction she was sure the older woman took note of.

"Of course."

T'Pau examined her face for another long moment, and T'Pring was sure she was taking note of any slip, any crack in the obligatory façade.

"To be heard is not always an easy prospect," she said finally. "To be heard is to be seen. To be seen is to be judged. To be judged is to be found unworthy."

T'Pring tilted her head up a fraction.

"I have long been found unworthy."

T'Pau looked her over again. "In the eyes of a few, perhaps. But if you are heard, you will be heard and judged by an entire world. Wherever you go on this world, you will be seen and known and named traitor to the ways that no one has questioned in an age. Even you have cause to fear that."

T'Pring was silent again, remembering. She had been alone inside her will for her entire life. She knew what it was to walk alone.

But even so…alone though she had been, she had not been seen. She had learned to be hidden, to let others believe what they would about her, and live in silence and darkness. A great many things were easier that way, and a great many more would become difficult or impossible if that concealing shroud of darkness were ripped away.

T'Pring closed her eyes. She had already known that. She had made that choice long ago.

"'Cast out fear,'" she quoted. "'There is no room for anything else until you cast out fear.'"

T'Pau inclined her head again. "So you say," she said, and turned slowly and stepped to the edge of the wall the held them back from the precipice. T'Pring stepped up beside her, automatically maintaining a respectful distance.

"An offer, then," said T'Pau, more abruptly than T'Pring ever recalled her speaking before. "I can make you be heard, but that is all. I can make no promises that any will listen, and even should they choose to, you will be little more than another kind of sacrifice. You will be the one who says the words that none wishes to hear. Like T'Kas of old, you may find yourself cursed to speak nothing but the truth that all would deny. You will be reviled by many." She looked up, and for the first time, T'Pring thought she saw a flicker of unidentifiable emotion in those eyes.

"But perhaps," continued T'Pau, "you may also be the one to sow the seeds of true change. Perhaps the young ones will hear, and remember, that another way is possible. Perhaps when they have grown and taken their parents' place as the fabric of society, they will still remember. Perhaps when someone determines a viable change, they will be ready to listen."

T'Pring looked away from the elder and out toward the open desert again. Once again her childhood self ran through the sands, free and wild and uncaring. Again, her teenage self learn the boundaries she was to stay within, and chaffed at them. Again, her adult self tugged and tore at those bonds, willing herself to be free of them.

"To be seen," she said slowly. "To always be watched by those looking for any reason to discount my words."

T'Pau nodded.

T'Pring's lips wanted to tighten, but she maintained the mask and looked steadily up at T'Pau.

"To give up the measure of freedom I have bought so that children not yet born may not have to face the same choice I did."

T'Pau looked down across the shifting sands.

"That is the price of being heard."

T'Pring looked away again.

"You could leave," said T'Pau. "You could seek your fate elsewhere. Even Star Fleet might be a better place for you than here."

T'Pring's lips did tighten at the bitter irony of T'Pau's suggestion.

"But if you stay," continued the matriarch, "you will have to be perfect. Any lapse, and you will be left shouting at the empty sky."

T'Pring looked up, where the great orb of T'Rukh had finally reached fullness as the sun completed its arc and touched the horizon. She let one hand close over the wall it rested on, and then raised it in front of her.

"A choice," she whispered, and opened her hand, staring at her cupped palm.

"A choice I should have remembered a long time ago." T'Pau's eyes were distant.

T'Pring continued staring at her hand.

"I have never had anything of my own to offer," she said. "Even my own body and mind were not mine alone."

"They are yours now," said T'Pau. "As is the freedom you sought. It is yours to keep."

T'Pring closed her fingers.

The silence fell around them once more as the light from behind them faded. In front of them, the edge of the horizon was already streaked with black at the edge of night, but above that, the Watcher's face showered them with cold light that was hardly dimmer than day.

Abruptly, T'Pring pushed away from the low wall and turned to face T'Pau. "Or mine to give away," she said, and opened her palm between them. "What I can offer, I will offer. Let me be heard, and I will speak."

T'Pau looked at her steadily. "Is that truly what you wish?"

T'Pring let her lips tighten for what she knew must be the last time.

"It is not what I wish," she said, "but it is what I will."

T'Pau nodded slowly, almost heavily. "As you will it, then." She turned slowly away from the face of the Watcher and toward the dying sun. "Rest. You will need whatever aid sleep can offer. But remember this: whatever they name you—traitor, unworthy, un-Vulcan, unheeding of our future—remember, as Surak taught, that nobility lies in action rather than name."

T'Pring inclined her head, and T'Pau started to move away, but then stopped and looked back.

"Also: know that, whatever course the future may take, in my own mind I would still count you as granddaughter."

T'Pring started, but T'Pau had already turned her back. "Rest, child," said the elder. "Tomorrow comes soon enough."

And then T'Pring was alone with the Watcher and the night wind.


	2. Vulcan's Grace

T'Pring was perfect.

Every hair was bound perfectly in place, every fold of her robes shifted gracefully as the air moved around her perfectly still body, and her face was locked into the look of perfect serenity that any Vulcan might suppress a stab of envy at.

"She was not content to cast away her own bondmate's life," said one junior council member flatly. "She would have us sacrifice our sons' lives in favor of our daughters' wishes."

T'Pring inclined her head. "That is not what I ask."

"Perhaps that is not what you wish," said another member. "But that is the outcome of what you ask of us."

"With all due respect," T'Pring lied, "that is not the case."

"What we are due from you is more than respect," said a third. "You would upset the very foundation of society. You should beg our pardon for your lapse in judgment, not request our assistance in your dangerous proposal."

"Danger?" said T'Pring, almost reacting visibly before sealing herself away again. "There is danger in immobility as well as in action."

"So you would say," said the first council member, "before leading us all off a cliff in your wild fancy."

T'Pring bowed her head politely, which hid the tiny narrowing of her eyes she could not quite suppress. "All I ask—"

"—is too much," interrupted the first council member, far outside the bounds of courtesy. "You speak too much. We are not required to listen to your lies and false dreams. Why do we listen to you at all?"

Before anyone else could react, T'Pau stood regally.

"You listen because I wish it," she said, and her voice rang through the hall. "Speak, T'Pring."

T'Pring bowed her gratitude and turned again to face those around her.

"All I ask is another way—an addition, not a replacement." She took another breath. "I would not ask you to risk your children. But let there be a way out. When a match proves unviable, let there be a way out that does not end in death."

There. That was it. That was all she would ask.

"There have been dissolutions before," said one of the council members. "Unworkable matches have been unmade. Your objections are illogical."

T'Pring bowed her head again.

"Dissolutions occur, yes. But only ever at the insistence of the parents—and even, on occasion, over the objection of those in the bond. That is no solution. There must be a way for the one who would make the choice to challenge to instead make the choice to dissolve the bond."

There was a whisper of murmuring in the air, and in the mental space in the room, not entirely blocked by the shields of those who sat there.

"And there you see her mind," said the first council member again. "She seeks nothing but justification after the fact for her own mistakes."

The murmur in the room turned to sounds of assent, and T'Pring steeled her face into icy serenity and said nothing.

One of the senior council members took the floor and faced her.

"What is your answer to this, T'Pring?"

T'Pring forced the breath to be even in her lungs. "My choice was a bitter one. I would not wish it on another."

"The logic of our system is sound," said the first council member, who seemed to take T'Pring's presence as a personal affront. "What would you wish? That all women abandon their bondmates as you did? You are without logic, T'Pring."

"No," said T'Pring, but the council member continued, cutting her off for a second time.

"Even before the Awakening, parents ensured that their children would not be alone. She is not just _d'Vel'nahr_—she is utterly un-Vulcan. If she wishes to be something other than what she was born to be, then let her seek her fate elsewhere and leave us in peace."

T'Pring held her poise and let the words roll off of her like precious water. It was not an idle threat—the council did indeed have the power to declare her _vrekasht_, outcast from all things Vulcan, on behalf of their entire world. None in her own family would contest the ruling—nor did T'Pau, granddaughter though she named her, have any legal ability to do so for her now that she was no longer bonded to her grandson. Her fate rested entirely in the hands of those who now stood accusing her, and she faced them alone.

The murmuring rose again, but this time it was less agreeable. Faint hints of hidden emotion swirled again, but this time they were more uncertain.

The senior council member rose again, and the murmuring subsided.

"Your words betray rash judgment, T'Yoru, she chastised the junior member. "T'Pring has not been named _d'Vel'nahr, _nor has she betrayed any such tendencies. Her logic is sound, if limited." She turned to T'Pring. "I would not cast such a vote," she said, and the murmuring rose in mixed agreement, "but I do not believe that the reforms you seek are necessary. Yours was an unfortunate case, but unique. There is no need to change things for everyone on the negligible chance that it will occur again."

The murmuring rose to a more unanimous assent. T'Pring bowed and tried again, her heart and blood only maintaining their usual patterns through sheer force of will.

"Honorable council, I request your reconsideration."

The senior member sat down again. "Unless there are any other matters to discuss, I move that we withdraw for the day."

"Seconded," said a male council member, and there were no calls to remain.

T'Pau stood. "As the council wishes," she said. "Adjourned." Her voice rolled through the hall with the force of a gavel, and as one, the council rose and began filing out.

T'Pring stood, unmoving, as the sea of figures surged around her, until one of them stopped and faced her with carefully concealed loathing.

"You are fortunate, T'Pring," said T'Yoru.

T'Pring inclined her head, unwilling to give in. "I am."

There was a minute tightening of T'Yoru's eyes as she tried to read her.

"Indeed," said T'Yoru. "If they pitied you less, they might not have deemed you worthy of sharing the same sand under their feet."

Perfect. She had to be perfect.

"It may be as you say, Council Member T'Yoru," said T'Pring, bowing her head with respect for her office. "But I have many reasons for gratitude."

T'Yoru gave her another look before stiffly nodding her farewell and leaving without another word.

T'Pring remained exactly where she was, not giving an inch to her stiffened knees, until the last of council, other than T'Pau, had left the room.

She let out the breath she had wanted to scream and bowed her head.

T'Pau moved down from her seat and stood beside her.

"You did well, granddaughter," she said softly.

"I failed," said T'Pring, looking down.

T'Pau took a deep breath and shook her head.

"No," she said. "You did not fail. You did what had to be done. You spoke the words they needed to hear—and heard them they did, deny it though they will. You carried yourself with grace and poise and gave them nothing to use against you."

T'Pring looked up. "But they did not listen. They would not change."

"They did listen. They did not agree with you, but they did listen. Remember that difference, child."

T'Pring closed her eyes. "A difference without substance."

"Is it?"

T'Pring opened her eyes, but did not look up.

"Child, your words have a life of their own now. They live in the minds of those who heard them, like seeds in the dry season. They live in the middle state, neither fully alive nor entirely unliving. But when the rains come…" She opened her hands, cupping them as though catching precious water in her palms.

T'Pring slowly looked up to meet her eyes.

"And if the rains never come?"

T'Pau turned to the side and picked something up from a low table.

"Then," she said, holding up a pitcher. "You will have to be the rain."

T'Pring stared at the image on ornately carved pitcher—a scene from ancient myth, showing T'Kay the trickster dancing away with the stolen heart of the river. She knew the scene all too well from her childhood, and also how the story ended—with T'Kay returning the heart and restoring the water to the land, and being hailed as a water goddess despite being the source of the problem in the first place.

"Fortunes may change," said T'Pau softly. "In what ways, none can say for certain. But without water, the seeds you have planted will most certainly die."

T'Pring looked down again. "Then I must continue, always knowing that I must lose?"

"Perhaps," said T'Pau. "But if I have learned one thing in my years, child, it is this..." She met her eyes and held out the pitcher. "There are some battles worth losing."

T'Pring looked at her expressionlessly for a long moment, and then held out her empty hands.

"As you say, elder," she said, and took the pitcher.


End file.
